Heman Bekele , 15, has just been named “Kid of the Year” by Time magazine for 2024 for inventing a soap that treats skin cancer . While the average cost of a skin cancer treatment is around $40,000, Bekele’s soap costs just $0.50, making it much more accessible to everyone.
While the money has helped Bekele pursue his project, he still needs a dedicated lab to conduct his research. That opportunity came in February, when he attended a networking event in Washington, DC, and met Vito Rebecca, a molecular biologist and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. Rebecca agreed to support Heman’s project and let him use her Baltimore lab to study the soap.